Syria Lebanon Partnership - August 2021 Update
A team from The Outreach Foundation (Jack Baca, Julie Burgess, Mark Mueller, Nuhad Tomeh, and Marilyn Borst) made a 2-week journey to Lebanon in late May. The purpose of the trip was to encourage our partners who have been through so much over the past 19 months: a collapse of their government and the economy; the pandemic and its necessary lockdowns; the cataclysmic explosion in the port of Beirut on August 4 which left over 200 dead, 6,500 injured and 300,000 homeless. The National Evangelical Synod of Syria and Lebanon made it possible for us to visit many of their churches. Two of those visits are highlighted here (Aalma Ech-Chaab and Sidon) by Julie Burgess.
Encouragement
Coming back from Aalma Ech-Chaab after worshipping there, I struggled for a way to frame our Sunday. But then it came to me from Mark’s sermon about Barnabas, from Acts 4:32-36. As Mark explained it so eloquently, pausing as Nuhad translated into Arabic for this sweet congregation, Barnabas was patient with Paul, positive toward Paul, and persistent for Paul, and saw the potential in everyone. These characteristics define an encourager, and of course, Barnabas’ name means “son of encouragement.”
After the long and winding journey to this very southern spot in Lebanon, a place we needed permission to go, we were met by Pastor Rabih Talib. Aalma is on the Mediterranean Sea, and you can see Israel from Rabih’s balcony.
This church was founded in 1867 by Cornelius Van Dyck, a Dutch reformed American missionary, who has had a profound impact on the church in the Arabic-speaking world. Among his many accomplishments is the translation of the Bible into Arabic. It is still the same Bible used here today, and to prove this, Rabih opened his own Bible and compared it to passages in the very old and yellowed one in the fellowship hall of the church. Some of us have seen the original handwritten pages of Van Dyck’s, which are housed in a special room at the Near East School of Theology (NEST) in Beirut.
Rabih is himself a graduate of NEST, as are most of the pastors in the Synod of Syria and Lebanon. Not only is he a pastor of the Synod, he is the current editor of Al Nashrah, a publication of the Synod which covers the life of the church here, but also deep theological treatises because this is a place of deep theological thinking and life. Standing in Rabih’s office, he pulled a bound issue of Nashrah off his shelf, dating to 1867. And the editor? Cornelius van Dyck! In the church founded by Van Dyck who served as its first pastor, we stood with the current pastor and editor of Nashrah, holding this 150+-year-old volume. From one Luke to another, the story of Presbyterians in Lebanon and Syria is still being told, and like from one Barnabas to another, the encouragement is passed on to a new generation.
After worship, we walked through the old parts of Aalma with the elders of the church. Along the way, Rev. Rabih pointed out gardens that contained some of the 37,000 vegetable plants and 1,500 fruit trees that his church had shared with people of this small community, all of whom are Christians, belonging to one of the three churches: the National Evangelical Church, Maronite Catholic, and Greek (Melkite) Catholic.
Returning to Beirut, we stopped at a most welcome spot to visit the church in Sidon, pastored for the past ten years by Rev. Mikhael Sbeit, a dear friend. And if we are continuing our connections here, which seemed to be the theme of the day, Mikhael spent his early years after seminary leading the church in Aalma. I don’t know why I am always surprised about the intertwining of places and ministry and people here, but I love that. It is a living book of Acts!
After coffee and sweets with Mikhael’s family in the form of his wife Nadej, oldest daughter Joy (soon to graduate from Lebanese American University in Beirut with her industrial engineering degree), and youngest child Noor, who has learned to crochet and bake during the quarantine (she made the cake!), we walked over to the church for some final precious moments. We met a mixed Iraqi/Iranian family of refugees being taken care of by this church and gathered around the piano while our dear friend Elder Elham played for us. Singing “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” Arabic and English mixing together, we had come full circle.
With patience, positivity, and persistence, we felt encouraged by each other, Barnabas to Paul, Van Dyck to Mikhael to Rabih, reveling in the knowledge that God in Jesus sees the potential in each of us to carry on, sharing the journey with the living Christ.
Julie Burgess, West Hills Church, Omaha, Nebraska
Read more about the Syria Lebanon Partnership HERE.
THE NEED
The Outreach Foundation is seeking gifts totaling $50,000 to continue its support of our Presbyterian family-by-faith in Syria and Lebanon during this difficult time. A small portion of this fund will assist related ministries in the region which care for refugees and other vulnerable segments of the society. You may make a gift HERE or by sending a check to our office.